person:john s. mccain

Admiral Squashed White House Request to Hide USS John McCain – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/03/admiral-squashes-white-house-request-to-hide-uss-john-mccain

https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/gettyimages-1152984671.jpg

Shot down. When U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer received a request from the White House to obscure the USS John McCain during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Japan, his answer was crystal clear: No way.

A senior U.S. defense official told FP on Sunday that Sawyer, commander of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, was the person who ultimately squashed the request, which sparked a global furor and threatened to overshadow Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan’s first major speech on the international stage.

Not an ‘unreasonable’ request. The directive, which was acknowledged by the Navy on Saturday, seems to have come from lower-level aides trying to avert an uncomfortable scenario—an effort that White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney called not “unreasonable.” The president has made no secret of his dislike for Sen. John McCain, who emerged as one of his strongest Republican critics during his 2016 campaign.

But it raises questions about the politicization of the military, an organization that is traditionally apolitical. Trump has drawn the military into the debate over his long-promised wall on the border with Mexico, clashed with Gold Star families, and frequently used military events to deliver politicized speeches. Following the uproar Shanahan himself, Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Defense, directed his chief of staff to tell the White House that the military “will not be politicized.”

A warship doomed by ‘confusion, indecision, and ultimately panic’ on the bridge
▻https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/14/a-warship-doomed-by-confusion-indecision-and-ultimately-panic-on-the-brid

https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/orrIqax7Orv6bclUPBVAC_4mDzI=/1200x630/filters:quality(100)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KSKR6LZ3HBDKREIMLAF47KJFGA.jpg

The Navy has paraded out a series of public reports addressing both the Fitzgerald tragedy and the Aug. 21, 2017, collision involving the John S. McCain and the Liberian-flagged tanker Alnic MC that killed 10 more American sailors.

But none of those investigations so starkly blueprinted the cascade of failures at all levels of the Navy that combined to cause the Fitzgerald disaster, especially the way the doomed crew of the destroyer was staffed, trained and led in the months before it the collision.

Fort’s team of investigators described a bridge team that was overworked and exhausted, plagued by low morale, facing a relentless tempo of operations decreed by admirals far above them, distrustful of their superiors and, fatally, each other.

And Navy officials knew all of that at least a year before the tragedy.
[…]
[The Commanding Officer (CO) Commander] Benson was “a little more active” on the bridge than Shu [his predecessor], but “it was not routine for the CO or (executive officer) to come up to the Bridge from (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.),” Fort wrote.

Out of 78 underway days from February to May of that year, the CO was on the bridge just four times between the dark hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., according to the report.

Et donc logiquement, absent de la passerelle quand le navire a croisé le “rail” de nuit…

A watery hell: how a green crew fought the Fitz to save her
▻https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/15/a-watery-hell-how-a-green-crew-fought-the-fitz-to-save-her

https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/BE4oPgIF52Q0c8MCBb-5PZIsrkI=/1200x630/filters:quality(100)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/VYJMXRMJNVB6VDB5RNEW7Y2FFA.jpg

On the day after the Fitzgerald limped back to Yokosuka, a plane carrying Rear Adm. Brian Fort landed in Japan.

A surface warfare officer with a quarter-century in uniform, Fort had been tasked with creating a report the Navy would use, in part, to defend itself against potential negligence lawsuits brought by ACX Crystal’s owners and operators and, indirectly, by the families of the Fitz’s dead sailors.

Completed 41 days after the disaster, it remained secret from the public until it was obtained by Navy Times.

Far more candid than the parade of public pronouncements by senior Navy officials since 2017, Fort’s report details how the the skills of Fitzgerald’s crew had atrophied in the months since it went into dry dock.

For example, after reporting to the Fitz, sailors were supposed to receive instruction on how to escape flooded berthing areas, a crucial course that was to be followed up by retraining every six months.

Of the 38 sailors assigned to Berthing 2, which flooded minutes after the ACX Crystal collision, 36 of 39 “were delinquent in the six-month periodic egress training,” Fort wrote.

Et si, le rapport de l’amiral Fort est resté secret, c’est parce qu’"il recouvre très largement les informations fournies dans les rapports publiés" (publiés d’ailleurs, nettement plus tard…

CNO defends hiding scathing internal report on Fitzgerald collision from public
▻https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/02/16/cno-defends-hiding-scathing-internal-report-on-fitzgerald-collision-from-

The Navy’s top officer Friday defended the decision to keep from the public eye a damning internal report on the 2017 warship Fitzgerald collision that killed seven sailors.

Speaking to reporters after his appearance at the U.S. Naval Institute’s West 2019 conference here, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said much of the report overlapped with what the service publicly released.

But much of the probe overseen by Rear Adm. Brian Fort portrayed a far grimmer picture of what the crew of the guided-missile destroyer faced. It also prompted hard questions about the actions taken by the Fitz’s squadron and Navy officials back in the United States.

First revealed by Navy Times, the Fort report chronicled details that Richardson, other Navy leaders and their public reports never mentioned, such as specifics about the destroyer’s brutal operational tempo, officers who didn’t trust each other, radars that didn’t work and sailors who didn’t know how to operate them.

The investigators also portrayed the warship’s chiefs mess as ineffective and their sailors plagued by low morale in the months leading up to the June 17, 2017, collision.

(les 3 expressions en gras sont des liens vers les articles ci-dessus)

#énorme

ah oui ! pour l’USS John S McCain …

With regard to procedures, no one on the Bridge watch team, to include the commanding officer and executive officer, were properly trained on how to correctly operate the ship control console during a steering casualty.

Pas d’entraînement à l’avarie de barre ! on rêve…

U.S. Navy orders back-to-basics reforms after deadly collisions
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash/u-s-navy-orders-back-to-basics-reforms-after-deadly-collisions-idUSKBN1D22S

“What happened was a gradual erosion of the margins of safety,” Admiral John Richardson, who as the chief of naval operations is the Navy’s top uniformed officer, told a news briefing, as he unveiled the results of the broad Navy review.

Rising pressure to meet demands for more and more Navy operations, particularly in the Asia-Pacific, led those in command to rationalize declining standards that ranged from basic seamanship to operational safety, Richardson said.

The Navy’s review called for reforms that will cost between $400 and $500 million over the next five to six years, including periodic, standardized assessments of seamanship and bolstering training of navigation fundamentals.

It also involved ensuring back-to-basics measures like ensuring sailors get enough sleep. The Navy said fatigue was a contributing factor in the Fitzgerald and John S. McCain collisions.

Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Seapower Subcommittee, said the Navy needed more ships to meet the demands for operations at sea. Boosting the size of the Navy is a key objective of Republican President Donald Trump.

“We are asking too few ships to do too many things,” said Wicker, a Republican.
[…]
During the summer, there was speculation that cyber warfare might have been to blame for the repeated mishaps, which stunned the Pentagon. The Navy, during its investigations, ruled out the possibility that hacking was to blame.

“These ships in the 7th Fleet did not master the fundamentals,” Richardson said.

Ouaouh, pour le John S McCain, c’est encore plus monstrueux que ce que laisse entendre la rapide synthèse ci-dessus. C’est du pur délire, du début à la fin : il n’y a jamais eu d’avarie de barre, c’était juste le bazar, mais grave !

At 0519, the Commanding Officer noticed the Helmsman (the watchstander steering the ship) having difficulty maintaining course while also adjusting the throttles for speed control. In response, he ordered the watch team to divide the duties of steering and throttles, maintaining course control with the Helmsman while shifting speed control to another watchstander known as the Lee Helm station, who sat directly next to the Helmsman at the panel to control these two functions, known as the Ship’s Control Console. See Figures 3 and 4. This unplanned shift caused confusion in the watch team, and inadvertently led to steering control transferring to the Lee Helm Station without the knowledge of the watch team. The CO had only ordered speed control shifted. Because he did not know that steering had been transferred to the Lee Helm, the Helmsman perceived a loss of steering.

Steering was never physically lost. Rather, it had been shifted to a different control station and watchstanders failed to recognize this configuration. Complicating this, the steering control transfer to the Lee Helm caused the rudder to go amidships (centerline). Since the Helmsman had been steering 1-4 degrees of right rudder to maintain course before the transfer, the amidships rudder deviated the ship’s course to the left.

Additionally, when the Helmsman reported loss of steering, the Commanding Officer slowed the ship to 10 knots and eventually to 5 knots, but the Lee Helmsman reduced only the speed of the port shaft as the throttles were not coupled together (ganged). The starboard shaft continued
at 20 knots for another 68 seconds before the Lee Helmsman reduced its speed. The combination of the wrong rudder direction, and the two shafts working opposite to one another in this fashion caused an un-commanded turn to the left (port) into the heavily congested traffic area in close proximity to three ships, including the ALNIC. See Figure 5.

Although JOHN S MCCAIN was now on a course to collide with ALNIC, the Commanding Officer and others on the ship’s bridge lost situational awareness. No one on the bridge clearly understood the forces acting on the ship, nor did they understand the ALNIC’s course and speed relative to JOHN S MCCAIN during the confusion.

Approximately three minutes after the reported loss of steering, JOHN S MCCAIN regained positive steering control at another control station, known as Aft Steering, and the Lee Helm gained control of both throttles for speed and corrected the mismatch between the port and starboard shafts. These actions were too late, and at approximately 0524 JOHN S MCCAIN crossed in front of ALNIC’s bow and collided. See Figure 6.

Il a pas le cul sorti des ronces celui-là

https://cdn.dvidshub.net/media/thumbs/photos/1710/3873855/1000w_q95.jpg

DVIDS - Images - USS John S. McCain heavy lift [Image 52 of 234]
▻https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3873855/uss-john-s-mccain-heavy-lift

CHANGI, Singapore (Oct. 7, 2017) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) is loaded onto the heavy lift transport MV Treasure, Oct. 11, 2017. Treasure will transport John S. McCain to Fleet Activities Yokosuka for repairs.

On est encore en dessous de cela : 8 sur 11 navires (72,7% !) n’ont pas la qualification « navigation » en juin 2017…

Readiness of U.S. Ships in Japan Focus of USS John S. McCain, USS Fitzgerald Collision Hearing - USNI News
▻https://news.usni.org/2017/09/07/readiness-u-s-ships-japan-focus-uss-john-s-mccain-uss-fitzgerald-collisio

“I have had made the assumption for many, many years that our forward deployed forces in Japan were the most proficient, well-trained, most experienced force we have because they were operating all the time,” [Navy’s second in command, VCNO Adm.] Moran told a Thursday joint hearing before the House Armed Services readiness and seapower and projection forces subcommittees.

“It was the wrong assumption.”
[…]
As of June 2017, 37 percent of the warfare certifications for cruiser and destroyer crews homeported in Japan had expired, and over two-thirds of the expired certifications—including mobility-seamanship and air warfare—had been expired for five months or more

“There were specific areas that were higher than 37 percent and one of those was seamanship. Eight of the 11 ships had expired certification for seamanship,” he told the panel

“This represents more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of expired warfare certifications for these ships since our May 2015 report.”

Both the Fitzgerald and McCain had expired certifications, but Pendleton wouldn’t detail the precise certifications that were out of date.

Faut-il s’en étonner quand on voit la programmation du temps consacré aux différentes activités ?

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/faeilbe6yzqydv3/GAO2015_Navy_Time_Allocation.png

Donc, si on lit le graphique, en 2015 le GAO constate sereinement (?) que pour la flotte déployée au Japon, sur un cycle de 2 ans, il n’y aucune séquence consacrée à l’entrainement ou la formation…

On rappelle par ailleurs que depuis 2003, il n’y a plus non plus de séquence de formation initiale des futurs officiers à la navigation qu’elle soit théorique (uniquement sur CD ou DVD) ou pratique (sur le tas pendant les prochains embarquements)…

Arf ! 3 jours après, CNN se réveille. Mais c’est Exclusive !

Exclusive : US Navy ships in deadly collisions had dismal training records - CNNPolitics
▻http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/11/politics/navy-ships-training-expired/index.html

The two US Navy destroyers involved in deadly collisions in the Pacific this summer both had lengthy records of failure to fulfill key training requirements, according to Government Accountability Office data provided to Congress and obtained by CNN.

The USS Fitzgerald had expired training certification for 10 out of 10 key warfare mission areas in June, and the USS John S. McCain had let its certifications lapse in six out of the 10 mission areas, the data show.
The dismal training record for the two ships sheds new light on one factor that may have contributed to the two collisions with commercial ships in June and August, which killed 17 sailors.
[…]
A Navy official contested the GAO’s training certification data, arguing that the GAO was focused on higher-level warfighting certifications and not the nuts-and-bolts certifications for operating ships where the Pacific fleet’s destroyers and cruisers have a better record. There are 22 certifications required for each ship and the GAO only reported on half, the official noted, though they declined to provide the full training records for the USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain, citing the ongoing investigations into the collisions.

Mais, apparemment, il ne s’agit pas des compétences de navigation.

The GAO examined training records in June for all of the Japan-based destroyers and cruisers, focusing on 10 key warfare training areas. They included air warfare, ballistic missile defense, electronic warfare, fire support, cruise missiles and more.
The USS Fitzgerald had let its training certifications expire for all of them, according to the GAO data.

The Navy’s preliminary findings in its Fitzgerald investigation found the crew failed to understand and acknowledge the cargo ship was approaching and failed to take any action necessary to avoid the collision.

(sur ce dernier point, c’était dans le rapport préliminaire de l’US Navy il y a un peu plus de 3 semaines ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/607667#message623706 )

Cyber Probes to be Part of All Future Navy Mishap Investigations After USS John S. McCain Collision - USNI News
▻https://news.usni.org/2017/09/14/cyber-probes-part-future-navy-mishap-investigations-uss-john-s-mccain-col

https://news.usni.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/170821-N-OU129-022.jpg

Probing potential cyber tampering and cyber intrusion will now be a standard part of U.S. Navy accident investigation following the Aug. 21 collision of guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) with a chemical tanker, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran told Congress last week.

As part of the investigation into McCain’s collision, a team from the Navy’s U.S. 10th Fleet cyber arm traveled to Singapore to see if a reported steering failure of the destroyer was a result of cyber tampering, USNI News reported last month.
[…]
“I would also offer to you that just about every three letter agency in Washington, D.C. has looked to see if there were indications of an intent or a potential acknowledgement of a cyber attack. We have seen — I have personally not seen any evidence of that. But we’re not stopping there. The team is in place in Singapore today, has been for several days capturing all of the computer and network information to see if they can find any abnormalities or disruptions.” [Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran said]

The effort, called Operation #Orion’s_Hammer, focused on the reported failure of the aft steering mechanism that early reports say helped cause the collision between McCain and a chemical tanker off the coast of Singapore on Aug. 21 resulting in the death of 10 sailors, several Navy officials have told USNI News.

On aurait donc bien confirmation d’une avarie de barre.

Sen. John S McCain III (R-AZ) dont le grand-père est l’éponyme du USS John S McCain à propos des collisions. Quelles que soient les conclusions des enquêtes, il est facile d’utiliser ces événements pour réclamer une augmentation du budget de la Navy
#send_more_money …

McCain Laments ’Accident After Accident’ After Military Cuts - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-17/mccain-laments-accident-after-accident-after-military-cuts

Following a series of deadly accidents, Senator John McCain on Sunday renewed his calls to address what he described as a U.S. failure during the past eight years to ensure that the military is prepared, equipped and trained. 

“Whenever you cut defense capabilities, the first thing that goes is the training and the readiness, because that’s easy enough to cancel,” the Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran from a military family, has been a longtime critic of the automatic cuts in U.S. spending — including reductions in U.S. defense — known as sequestration that began in 2013 under an earlier deal to raise the country’s debt limit.
[…]
“When you really look at how much time they have at actual training and readiness, it’s continued to shrink,” McCain said. “We have accident after accident after accident. We are killing more Americans in uniform in training than we are in engagement with the enemy. That’s not acceptable.”

Dans une US Navy qu’il décrit comme étant commandée essentiellement par des aviateurs – et un sous-marinier, des hommes, blancs, Joseph Konrad déplore le non recours à l’expérience maritime (de navigation et de commandement à la mer) d’une amirale, femme, afro-américaine qu’on préfère employer à inaugurer les chrysanthèmes en Europe…

Michelle Howard — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Howard

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Admiral_Michelle_J._Howard_VCNO.jpg/480px-Admiral_Michelle_J._Howard_VCNO.jpg

Michelle Janine Howard, née le 30 avril 1960 sur la March Air Reserve Base (Californie), est une amirale américaine. Elle est la première femme afro-américaine à commander un navire militaire (1999), première femme à devenir amiral quatre étoiles, à devenir femme vice-chef des Opérations navales (2014-2016), à diriger l’United States Naval Forces Europe (depuis 2016) puis l’Allied Joint Force Command Naples (depuis 2016).

Mêmes conclusions ici. Avec extension à la dépendance globale de la société aux technologies…

USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain Mishaps Reveal Vulnerability | Observer
▻http://observer.com/2017/08/navy-uss-john-s-mccain-collision

First, neither the Naval Academy nor OCS produces naval officers qualified to fill seagoing billets without further training. The Surface Officer Warfare School that conducted this preparation was eliminated and ensigns were sent to sea in large numbers. Commanding officers and distance learning means were put in place to conduct this training. That did not work.

Technology is also a culprit. The bridge of a modern warship is loaded with super technology. Radars and sonars have been augmented with infrared sensors and night vision devices. Computers navigate by GPS (global positioning system) and alert watch standers of potential dangers of collision or when in restricted waters. Seaman’s eye and good seamanship have been partially replaced by technology. As a result, traditional mariners’ skills have atrophied.

Each of the services faces potential similar problems mandated by judgments at the time that made sense given the pressures and demands. These institutional decisions have vulnerabilities of their own. For example, American military forces are entirely dependent today on the network and GPS that provide the life’s blood of C3I (command, control and intelligence) to logistics and from firing precision ordinance against the enemy to supplying cheeseburgers and smart phones to forward operation bases.

Similarly, society at large is dependent on the Internet, cell phones and electronic everything from depositing money in banks to paying bills and having intimate conversations with friends. Cyber attacks and hacking are the most well known disrupters that exploit these vulnerabilities.

The Pentagon is well aware of many of these vulnerabilities. Naval officers are oiling ancient sextants to navigate by the sun and stars. Soldiers and marines are reading maps instead of iPads. And “distributed operations” that assume the “net” no longer works are being practiced.

Given that the other services may face issues similar to the Navy’s, the Pentagon would be well advised to conduct a major review of these potential vulnerabilities created by institutional choices. Two topics are less visible although possibly more important. The first has to do with preparing flag and general officer for higher command and geopolitical and strategic issues. The second has to do with civilian control of the military.

Maybe today’s Navy is just not very good at driving ships
▻https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-culture-in-crisis

In the wake of two fatal collisions of Navy warships with commercial vessels, current and former senior surface warfare officers are speaking out, saying today’s Navy suffers from a disturbing problem: The SWO community is just not very good at driving ships.

The two collisions — and a total of 17 sailors lost at sea this summer — have raised concerns about whether this generation of surface fleet officers lack the basic core competency of their trade.

The problem is years in the making. Now, the current generation of officers rising into command-level billets lacks the skills, training, education and experience needed to operate effectively and safely at sea, according to current and former officers interviewed by Navy Times.
[…]
For nearly 30 years, all new surface warfare officers spent their first six months in uniform at the Surface Warfare Officer’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, learning the theory behind driving ships and leading sailors as division officers.

But that changed in 2003. The Navy decided to eliminate the “SWOS Basic” school and simply send surface fleet officers out to sea to learn on the job. The Navy did that mainly to save money, and the fleet has suffered severely for it, said retired Cmdr. Kurt Lippold.

“The Navy has cut training as a budgetary device and they have done it at the expense of our ability to operate safely at sea,” said Lippold, who commanded the destroyer Cole in 2000 when it was attacked by terrorists in Yemen.

After 2003, each young officer was issued a set of 21 CD-ROMs for computer-based training — jokingly called “SWOS in a Box” — to take with them to sea and learn. Young officers were required to complete this instructor-less course in between earning their shipboard qualifications, management of their divisions and collateral duties.

“The elimination of SWOS Basic was the death knell of professional SWO culture in the United States Navy,” Hoffman said. “I’m not suggesting that … the entire surface warfare community is completely barren of professionalism. I’m telling you that there are systemic problems, particularly at the department head level, where they are timid, where they lack resolve and they don’t have the sea time we expect.”

“There is a growing suspicion among a small circle of current and former COs that chickens may be coming home to roost,” retired Capt. Kevin Eyer, who commanded three Aegis cruisers, wrote in Proceedings Magazine online after the McCain collision.

’The chickens come home to roost’ - the meaning and origin of this phrase
▻http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chickens-come-home-to-roost.html

The notion of bad deeds, specifically curses, coming back to haunt their originator is long established in the English language and was expressed in print as early as 1390, when Geoffrey Chaucer used it in The Parson’s Tale:

And ofte tyme swich cursynge wrongfully retorneth agayn to hym that curseth, as a bryd that retorneth agayn to his owene nest.

The allusion that was usually made was to a bird returning to its nest at nightfall, which would have been a familiar one to a medieval audience. Other allusions to unwelcome returns were also made, as in the Elizabethan play The lamentable and true tragedie of Arden of Feversham, 1592:

For curses are like arrowes shot upright, Which falling down light on the suters [shooter’s] head.

Chickens didn’t enter the scene until the 19th century when a fuller version of the phrase was used as a motto on the title page of Robert Southey’s poem The Curse of Kehama, 1810:

“Curses are like young chicken: they always come home to roost.”

This extended version is still in use, notably in the USA.

The notion of the evil that men create returns to their own door also exists in other cultures. Buddhists are familiar with the idea that one is punished by one’s bad deeds, not because of them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge revived the imagery of a bird returning to punish a bad deed in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1798. In the poem the eponymous mariner kills an albatross, which was regarded as an omen of good luck, and is punished by his shipmates by having the bird hung around his neck:

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

On a droit à la blague du phare dès le deuxième (de très peu) commentaire…

La trajectoire du Alnic MC (il y a 10 minutes, il était à l’arrêt à l’entrée du port - le point rouge à l’extrémité de la trajectoire)

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/2rztn6sm5zxt2pl/20170821_JohnMcCain.jpg

(il faut dire, il y a beaucoup de monde devant Singapour et dans le détroit…)

Il revenait juste d’avoir fait le kéké, pardon fait respecter les principes de liberté de navigation, sur les Spratleys,…
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/621711

Ici, il est hors de question d’imaginer une quelconque défaillance de la veille sur l’un ou l’autre navire : ça doit être l’endroit où le trafic est le plus dense au monde et on est aux abords immédiats du port…

En revanche, le communiqué de la Navy laisse songeur. Le John McCain est abordé à babord (à l’arrière de sa seconde cheminée), vraisemblablement à l’endroit où s’achève la dernière ligne droite de la trajectoire) alors que le pétrolier vient de l’est et se dirige vers le terminal pétrolier (dans l’axe de cette ligne droite). Difficile à imaginer si le John McCain entrait au port ; normalement, il présentait son flanc tribord…

Au vu des photos, et de l’enfoncement des tôles, il semblerait que le pétrolier venait de l’arrière.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/thumb/msid-60155927,width-800,resizemode-4/60155927.jpg

Stricken destroyer John S. McCain arrives in Singapore, 10 crew still missing
▻http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/20/navy-destroyer-john-s-mccain-collides-with-merchant-vessel

Mounting questions
The details of how the collisions occurred remain unkown, But incidents such as those with the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents are troubling, said Jan van Tol, a retired commander of three war ships who now serves as an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“Navy destroyers are remarkably nimble and responsive, including rapid acceleration ability, thus should certainly be able to get out of the way of almost anything approaching ‘too close,’” van Tol said in an email.

“Such close quarters situations should NEVER be allowed to develop without various watchstanders and watchteams being well aware that they are developing,” he said.

It is unknown whether McCain had suffered any kind of casualty to its engineering or steering systems ahead of the collision that would have contributed to the disaster.

The collision was the fourth significant safety incident of 2017 involving a U.S. 7th Fleet ship. In January, the cruiser Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay and in May, the cruiser Lake Champlain collided with a Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan.

(outre le Fitzgerald)

Complètement dingue !

La collision a eu lieu nettement plus à l’est, juste à l’entrée du dispositif de séparation de trafic. Dans les derniers instants, on voit l’Alnic NC abattre en grand sur la gauche en ralentissant fortement, indice évident d’une manœuvre en catastrophe, qui ne peut se justifier (on est dans le rail, bon sang !) que par une tentative d’évitement désespérée…

Mille sabords !, que fabriquait cet amiral de bateau-lavoir de USS John S. McCain à cet endroit là ?
(NB : le père et le grand-père du sénateur, John S. McCain III, ont tous les deux terminé leur carrière comme amiral et, pour faire simple portaient également le même middle name, Sidney. On fait dans la dynastie ou pas…)

Comment a-t-il pu couper la route d’un bateau dont la route est absolument rectiligne et prévisible (il est dans le rail) ? Peut-être le McCain n’y était-il pas et a-t-il manœuvré brutalement pour s’y placer ?
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlrA36GzHNs

EDIT (24/08)
pour gCaptain, l’abattée à gauche est le résultat de la collision, ce qui parait tout à fait crédible et explique bien la forme de l’enfoncement sur l’arrière de l’ouverture. Le McCain devait filer vite pour dévier à ce point la trajectore.
Du coup, on peut élaborer un scénario où le McCain coupe, pour des raisons qu’il reste à préciser, le rail « conformément aux règles internationales » : perpendiculairement et le plus vite possible. Et dans ce cas, il est responsable à 100%…

Comment, elle a dit déjà l’amirauté ? ah oui, #poor_seamanship …

▻http://gcaptain.com/uss-john-s-mccain-collision-ais-animation-shows-tankers-track-during-colli

Une embarcation fait le tour du John McCain au mouillage
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn8T_9JkTp0

(dans les spots télé, les séquences vidéo sont essentiellement des images d’archive ; c’est flagrant sur les (longues) images d’accostage, où le navire est dans ses lignes d’eaux, ce qui n’est plus le cas après l’abordage…)

The Latest: US Navy vessel arrives to help damaged destroyer - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-latest-us-warship-sailing-on-own-power-after-collision/2017/08/20/9c7ae012-860e-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html

5:00 p.m.
The oil tanker involved in a collision with the USS John S. McCain destroyer in busy Southeast Asian waters had four deficiencies including navigation safety violations in its last port inspection.

An official database for ports in Asia shows the Alnic MC was inspected in the Chinese port of Dongying on July 29 and had one document deficiency, one fire safety deficiency and two safety of navigation problems.

The database doesn’t go into details and the problems were apparently not serious enough for the Liberian-flagged and Greek-owned vessel to be detained by the port authority.
[…]
4:10 p.m.
The chief of Malaysia’s Maritime Enforcement Agency says the collision between an oil tanker and the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer early Monday occurred at the start of a designated sea lane for ships sailing into the Singapore Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Zulkifli Abu Bakar said the incident occurred 4.5 nautical miles (8.3 kilometers) from Malaysia’s coast. He said a Malaysian warship was in the area monitoring the cleanup of an oil spill from an unrelated collision of two merchant ships and was contacted by the McCain.

Both Malaysia and Singapore say the accident happened in their waters, likely reflecting a dispute about ownership of some rocky outcrops in the area.

“It happened in Malaysian territorial waters, specifically in Teluk Ramunia waters,” Zulkifli said. “For this moment, we shouldn’t argue about whose waters. Most important thing is we focus on the search and rescue.”

Frontière entre la Malaisie et Singapour — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontière_entre_la_Malaisie_et_Singapour

La délimitation de cette frontière maritime a fait l’objet d’un recours devant la Cour internationale de justice, effectué conjointement le 24 juillet 2003 par la Malaisie et Singapour. Le différend portait sur l’île de Pedra Branca, les Middle Rocks (deux rochers inhabités) et South Ledge, un haut-fond découvrant. Par un arrêt du 23 mai 2008, la Cour a attribué Pedra Blanca à Singapour, les Middle Rocks à la Malaisie, et South Ledge à l’État dans les eaux territoriales duquel il se trouve (la Cour n’ayant pas reçu mandat des parties pour délimiter leurs eaux territoriales respectives).

L’arrêt de la CIJ
Affaire relative à la souveraineté sur Pedra Blanca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks et South Ledge –(Malaisie/Singapour)
Arrêt du 23 mai 2008
▻http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/130/130-20080523-JUD-01-00-FR.pdf

(il me semblait avoir vu passer ce contentieux ici)

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/tmh5pfnapjcowwk/20080523_CIJ_détroit_de_Malacca.jpg

Situation relative du rail et des îlots
(le phare Horsburgh Light est construit sur Pedra Blanca)

http://oceanring.com/images/page24map.jpg

Serrage de boulons généralisé…

Admiral to order operational pause in Navy after warship, merchant ship collide - CNN
▻http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/20/asia/us-navy-destroyer-collision-singapore/index.html

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is expected to order a one-day pause in operations “to ensure we are taking all appropriate immediate measures to enhance the Navy’s safe and effective operation around the world,” according to a US Defense official and an advanced copy of Richardson’s statement obtained by CNN.

The stand-down will take place over the next couple of weeks, at the discretion of individual commands, the defense official said.

The order comes after a US Navy guided-missile destroyer collided early Monday with an oil tanker east of Singapore, the fourth accident this year involving a US warship in Asian waters.

“This is the second major collision in the last three months, and is the latest in a series of major incidents, particularly in the Pacific theater. This trend demands more forceful action,” Richardson’s statement says.

C’est le moment de ressortir la vanne éculée du phare et du porte-avions états-unien… #lighthouse_vs_US_Navy

▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_urban_legend

US Navy also considering ’cyber intrusion or sabotage’ as possible causes for USS John McCain collision
▻http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-navy-also-considering-cyber-intrusion-sabotage-possible-causes-uss-joh

A steering failure, or maybe even hacked systems – the US Navy is considering all possible reasons after launching a broad investigation into the collision of the US guided-missile destroyer USS John McCain with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore on Monday (21 August).

Plusieurs médias reprennent l’hypothèse, apparemment émise par l’US Navy, de panne de l’appareil à gouverner (#avarie_de_barre, un des entrainements les plus fréquents en passerelle dans mon souvenir, presqu’autant que #un_homme_à_la_mer à babord/tribord suivie du Boutakov règlementaire…) Je ne trouve pas le communiqué original. Pas plus que, l’évocation officielle d’une #cyber-attaque qui aurait déjà été plus ou moins éliminée par la marine.

Apparemment, la source initiale est CNN

Ships, aircraft search for crashed US destroyer’s 10 missing crew - CNNPolitics
▻http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/uss-john-s-mccain-collision/index.html?sr=twCNN082217uss-john-s-mccain-collision0958AMVODtop

What caused the accident?
The warship suffered a steering failure as the warship was beginning its approach into the Strait of Malacca, causing it to collide with a commercial tanker Monday, a US Navy official told CNN.
The official said it was unclear why the crew couldn’t utilize the ship’s backup steering systems to maintain control of ship.
Earlier, another US Navy official told CNN there were indications the destroyer experienced a loss of steering right before the collision, but steering had been regained after the collision.

Évidemment, l’option #hacker circule pas mal (déjà pour l’USS Fitzgerald), Popular Mechanics explique de son côté que ça ne peut pas être du #GPS_spoofing, etc.
No, the USS McCain Wasn’t a Victim of GPS Spoofing
▻http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a27854/uss-mccain-collision-gps

Ah, ben Les Échos relaient le complotisme, bravo…
(oubliant au passage l’hypothèse de l’avarie de barre, mise en avant par l’amiral Richardson (CNO : Chief of naval operations)

Après la collision d’un destroyer américain, des experts agitent la piste de la cyberattaque
▻https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/010189757977-apres-la-collision-dun-destroyer-americain-des-experts-agitent

L’amiral n’a pas exclu que la collision ait pu être provoquée par un facteur extérieur ou une cyberattaque. Cet accident n’est pas le premier (voir encadré) et intrigue certains spécialistes de la Défense.

« Il y a quelque chose de plus que la simple erreur humaine car sinon cela impliquerait énormément de gens », avance par exemple Jeff Stutzman interrogé par le site McClatchyDC.

Pour cet ancien spécialiste de la guerre de l’information et de la marine, qui travaille désormais chez Wapack Labs, une société de sécurité informatique, tout bâtiment qui s’avance dans le détroit de Singapour aura sur le pont une équipe complète de vigiles et d’opérateurs radars.

De son côté, interrogé par le site « International Business Times », Todd Humphreys, un professeur à l’Université du Texas et spécialiste en systèmes de navigation par satellite, va plus loin dans la suspicion.

Pour lui, cet accident semble « statistiquement très suspect ». Et il n’hésite pas à faire un parallèle avec un incident intervenu en juin en Mer noire et au cours duquel des signaux GPS auraient été trafiqués via, selon lui, « un signal qui provenait du continent russe ».

La piste russe n’est cependant pas la seule à être soulevée. Interrogé par le site australien news.com, Itay Glick, un autre expert de cybersécurité qui a travaillé pour les services de renseignements israéliens, avance que si la Russie a les capacités d’effectuer une telle attaque, la Chine l’a également.

« Je ne crois pas aux coïncidences », explique-t-il encore en rappelant que « l’erreur humaine » est toujours une solution de facilité pour expliquer un accident.

À « l’expert » dont les pontifications concluent l’article, on fera remarquer que la Navy a viré tout l’état-major de l’USS Fitzgerald et on rappellera aux Échos que l’amiral Richardson met en avant une deuxième hypothèse « matérielle ».

Certains font remarquer que les nombreuses gesticulations de la Navy dans un contexte où le nombre de bâtiments baisse pourraient avoir aboutir à une fatigue des équipements et des équipages…

Enfin, on sourira à la légende de la photo (bizarrement fournie par le SIPA) ouvrant l’article…

https://www.lesechos.fr/medias/2017/08/22/2108951_apres-la-collision-dun-destroyer-americain-des-experts-agitent-la-piste-de-la-cyberattaque-web-tete-010189919343.jpg

la légende d’AP est la suivante
Malaysian Maritime Director Indera Abu Bakar points to damage on USS John S. McCain at press conference in Putrajaya on Monday.
AP Photo/Daniel Chan

China Calls U.S. Navy ’Arrogant’ After USS John Mccain Collision Accident
▻http://www.newsweek.com/china-us-arrogant-john-mccain-653395

A Chinese state-run newspaper claimed Monday that the most recent collision of a U.S. Navy destroyer with a merchant ship was an example of the U.S.’s “arrogance” in conducting patrols in and around the South China Sea.

The nationalist Global Times ran an editorial Monday shortly after the USS John S. McCain was hit by an oil tanker east of Singapore in the Strait of Malacca and 10 sailors were reported missing.

While stating the collision was an example of the U.S. military’s decline and that Chinese society’s “applause” was tantamount to the nation’s feelings toward the U.S. encroaching on its territory, the opinion piece also claimed that the U.S. is not trying to avoid such collisions.

“U.S. warships are constantly involved in accidents around the South China Sea,” the op-ed, which is often considered direct thoughts from the Chinese government, read. “On the one hand, the U.S. Navy has behaved arrogantly in the Asia-Pacific region. It lacks respect for huge merchant ships and fails to take evasive action in time, thus resulting in serious accidents.”

On n’est pas loin de la blague du phare…
Blague qu’évoque le deuxième commentateur de l’article du Monde sur le sujet.
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/623860

CNN sur la même – et évidente – question, mais beaucoup plus terre à terre : quand il y a série, c’est qu’il y a problème de fond…

Why are so many Navy ships crashing ? - CNNPolitics
▻http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/navy-ships-crashing-readiness/index.html

The US Navy is facing difficult questions about the health of its fleet in the aftermath of the USS John S. McCain’s collision with an oil tanker east of Singapore on Monday, the latest in a series of naval accidents in the Pacific.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson ordered a rare, one-day operational pause in response to the latest collision. And while the cause of the USS McCain crash is still to be determined, the spate of accidents — four since January — suggests there could be a more systemic issue.
Lawmakers and defense analysts are warning that the Navy’s readiness problems — which have led to longer deployments for ships and less time and money for maintenance and training — could be playing a role in the uptick in crashes.
In addition to the Navy’s stand-down, the Marine Corps grounded all of its aircraft for 24 hours earlier this month on the heels of two deadly crashes “to focus on the fundamentals of safe flight operations, standardization, and combat readiness.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said it was unprecedented that “two military services have now had to take a knee to review safety and training procedures.”
[…]
Former Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes, who is now a fellow at the Naval War College, said the concern over the recent incidents goes beyond just determining why the collisions occurred, but points to a broader issue if the Navy had to ramp up in a significant conflict.

“When our ships are having this much difficulty sailing in open waters, it gives us a lot of concern about what would happen if we were in a major conflict and how we would operate there,” Forbes said. “The Navy is in desperate need of additional resources so that they can do the kind of training they need, they can do the kind of ship maintenance they need.”
[…]
Thomas Callender, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation and former Navy submarine officer, noted that the destroyer collisions occurred in low-light times of day and highly trafficked areas.

“Those are some of the most difficult times, sunset and sunrise, of trying to determine what your contact picture is, what you’re really seeing with this,” Callender said.
Forbes said traffic congestion would likely be a commonality, too.

“It’s like when you have accidents on roads: Normally it’s going to be where more vehicles are,” he said. “It still doesn’t justify it — we’ve got to operate in those waters.”
But the fact that all four Navy collisions this year occurred in the Pacific could also point to issues with training that are specific to the region, Hendrix said.
“The fact this is so regional ... it strikes me there’s a degradation in training standards and operational procedures,” he said.

Déclaration, ce soir à Singapour, de l’amiral Scott Swift, commandant de la Flotte du Pacifique (3è et 7è flotte)
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4YIXBf03eo

• toute première question (7:00) (on ne les entend pas bien, mais les réponses permettent de les reconstituer) : cyberattaque ?
– j’ai entendu cette hypothèse, mais on n’a rien vu qui puisse laisser penser à quelque chose de cette nature, mais nous (il cite le CNO) n’écartons aucune hypothèse

• des modifications dans la chaîne de commandement
– c’est trop tôt pour conclure quoi que ce soit, laisser se dérouler l’enquête

• la flotte n’est-elle pas épuisée ? y a-t-il eu des négligences ?
– ce n’est pas ce que j’ai vu ce matin lors de ma visite du navire, les équipages sont déterminés et opérationnels, ils ont bien bossé pour le damage control

• découverte de corps ?
– la marine malaisienne a récupéré un corps (en mer, donc) et va nous le restituer ; les plongeurs ont trouvé des corps, nous sommes en train de les identifier

U.S. Navy to relieve admiral of command after collisions: WSJ
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash-admiral-idUSKCN1B3034

The U.S. Navy plans to remove from duty the commander of the fleet that has suffered four recent collisions in Asia and the deaths of a number of sailors, the _Wall Street Journal _reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. officials.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the three-star commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan, will be relieved of command on Wednesday in connection with four collisions since January, including two involving fatalities, two U.S. officials said, according to the Journal. It said Navy officials declined to comment.

La Chine remet une couche…

After U.S. destroyer collision, Chinese paper says U.S. navy a hazard
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-crash-china-idUSKCN1B20O2

The state-run China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday that people will wonder why such a sophisticated navy keeps having these problems.

“The investigations into the latest collision will take time to reach their conclusions, but there is no denying the fact that the increased activities by U.S. warships in Asia-Pacific since Washington initiated its rebalancing to the region are making them a growing risk to commercial shipping,” it said.

China has been upset at U.S. freedom of navigation operations near Chinese controlled islands in the disputed South China Sea, where China has been reclaiming land, building air bases and increasing its military presence.

“While the U.S. Navy is becoming a dangerous obstacle in Asian waters, China has been making joint efforts with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to draw up a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea and it has boosted navigational safety by constructing five lighthouses on its islands,” the China Daily said.

“Anyone should be able to tell who is to blame for militarizing the waters and posing a threat to navigation.”

Ah, quand même, on se décide enfin à demander leur avis à des experts en autre chose que les cyberattaques !

US Navy 7th Fleet commander dismissed, Navy says - CNNPolitics
▻http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/uss-mccain-7th-fleet-commander-dismissal/index.html

Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said that he thought it was unlikely that the ship would have been hacked.

“Navigating a ship in a shipping channel is a manual operation. It comes down to watch attention and awareness. It’s a training procedure issue and a watch qualification issue,” he said.

He added that even if the steering had been compromised it would be possible for the McCain to outrun the tanker, and that some degree of directionality would be possible by changing the speed of the port and starboard propellers.

The “traffic situation” in the shipping channel at that time should be the focus of investigation, Ridzwan Rahmat, a senior defense and security analyst at Jane’s suggests.

“The signs were that the merchant ship was in compliance and the damage on the USS John S. McCain suggests that it wasn’t in compliance” of traffic rules at the time, he said.

Si vous ne l’avez pas déjà lu, peut-être faites un petit détour sur le fil concernant le Fitzgerald, l’article de gCaptain, Red over red, concernant le rapport préliminaire sur l’abordage d’il y a deux mois est à lire absolument.
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/607667#message624112

Je reprends ici mon commentaire qui concernait plutôt les événements du McCain (je finis par m’y perdre…)
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/607667#message624116

Sur l’incompétence des commentateurs, je remarque qu’aucun n’a fait la remarque que le navire de guerre coupe la route d’un bâtiment de commerce dans un rail…

L’hypothèse d’une cyberattaque relève du délire. Mais peut-être que les hackers russes ou chinois dont déjà capables aujourd’hui de liquéfier les cervelles d’une équipe de quart en passerelle, après tout de quoi ne sont-ils pas capables ?

Si le GPS est tombé en rade ou a été piraté, on dispose d’autres moyens de navigation, mille sabords, notamment en vue de terre. Bon sang, l’abordage a eu lieu à 5 miles du principal phare de la région et à 10 miles de la côte ! Si la passerelle a besoin du GPS pour naviguer, il y a lieu de s’interroger sur les compétences requises pour être officier de quart dans l’US Navy.

Mais, de fait, on en est bien là : couper la route d’un navire dans le rail (je sais je me répète, mais ça ne passe pas !…)

d’où mon soulagement (enfin, presque…) dans le commentaire précédant immédiatement celui-ci…

Search for Missing U.S. Sailors Slowed by Extensive Damage to Vessel - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/world/asia/mccain-collision-destroyer-united-states-navy.html

In the McCain case, the search is taking longer because the damage to the vessel appears to be more extensive. According to one Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because investigations were underway, the Alnic appears to have hit the McCain nearly head-on, whereas the Fitzgerald suffered more of a glancing blow.

C’est en effet compatible avec l’enregistrement de la trajectoire de l’Alnic MC (j’ai complété mon commentaire de la vidéo des relevés AIS ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/623510#message623551 )

Par ailleurs, le corps repêché par la marine malaisienne n’avait pas de lien avec l’abordage.

A Malaysian Navy vessel found a body at sea on Tuesday, but it turned out to be the decomposed corpse of an elderly man and was unrelated to the collision, the United States Navy said.

China suspected after crashes of USS John S McCain and USS Fitzgerald | World | The Times & The Sunday Times
▻https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0988b8f8-88fa-11e7-a8f3-117a3aea90d9

The collision on Monday between a Liberian tanker and a US warship, the latest in a series of incidents in Asia, has provoked questions about possible Chinese involvement.

A former Royal Navy officer said that the movements of the Guang Zhou Wan, a Chinese commercial vessel, could be significant in explaining the fatal crash off Singapore that left at least one sailor dead. A further nine are missing.

Tracking data indicates that the tanker that collided with U_SS John S McCain_ was followed by the Chinese vessel, which appeared to steer out of the way before the incident.

“You get the impression that fleet forces command are going to be looking at wider potential problems — hacking, crew training, how they are navigating, validating of ship-watch…

With the USS McCain collision, even Navy tech can’t overcome human shortcomings | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/with-the-uss-mccain-collision-even-navy-tech-cant-overcome-human-shortc

Initial reports from the organization suggest that a “steering casualty”—a loss of control over steering from the bridge—contributed to the McCain’s fatal collision. That, and the nature of the ship’s steering and navigation system, has led to speculation that the McCain was “hacked” and that perhaps some sort of malicious electronic attack was also involved in the Fitzgerald’s collision.

But so far, available evidence suggests something much less sinister—though potentially more threatening to the overall readiness of the service. There was no hacking, no GPS spoofing or jamming, nor any other deliberate enemy electronic attack on the Navy ships involved in this year’s accidents. Instead, much more human factors were at work—and some of them are endemic to the Navy’s current management culture and operational readiness.
[…]
Watch standers aboard modern warships may have more technology to help them, but they still face a daunting task when they enter high-traffic areas as treacherous as the Strait of Gibraltar—or the Strait of Malacca, the approaches to the Bosporus and Dardanelles, and the approaches to Tokyo Bay. In each, hundreds of other vessels may be visible to the naked eye or on the radar scope. The resulting sea of data points can overwhelm even an experienced bridge crew regardless of how good their technology is.

Long article, où je finis par perdre le fil de ce qu’il cherche à dire…

Up-close look at gash on tanker that collided with USS John S. McCain Video - ABC News
▻http://abcnews.go.com/International/video/close-gash-tanker-collided-uss-john-mccain-49375629

http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/170823_vod_orig_sinapore_tanaer_woodruff_16x9_992.jpg

U.S. Navy Provides Details of Surface Fleet Review In Wake of ’Disturbing Trend’ of Accidents – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-provides-details-surface-fleet-review-wake-disturbing-trend-accid

The U.S. Navy has provided details of a comprehensive review of the Navy’s global surface fleet operations after the destroyers USS Fitzgerald and John S. McCain were both involved in major collisions with commercial vessels just two months apart.

▻http://navylive.dodlive.mil/files/2017/08/MEMO-FOR-USFF_COMPREHENSIVE-REVIEW-OF-RECENT-SURFACE-FLEET-INCIDEN

2. You are directed to lead a Comprehensive Review of surface fleet operations and incidents at sea that have occurred over the past decade with emphasis on SEVENTH Fleet operational employment to inform improvements Navy-wide. This review should address the follow areas:

a. Individual training and professional development, to include seamanship, navigation, voyage planning, leadership development, officer and enlisted tactical training in formal schools and on the job;

b. Unit level training and operational performance, to including manning, personnel management, watchbill management, bridge (and CIC) team resource management, contact management, contact avoidance, leadership oversight and risk assessment/mitigation at all levels of the chain of command;

c. Development and certification of deployed operational and mission standards (Force Generation) with particular emphasis on Forward Deployed Naval Force (FDNF), to include validation of required certification standards, gaps between required standards and actual employment practices, effectiveness of leadership and oversight at all levels of administrative and operational chains of command, maintaining and enforcing standards throughout FDNF assignment including self-assessment practices, external inspection reinforcement, remedial action mitigation plans;

d. Deployed Operational Employment and Risk Management (Force Employment), to include Combatant Commander mission requirements, theater security cooperation requirements, maintenance impacts, other competing priorities (fleet experimentation, concept development), and their corresponding impact to operational tempo (OPTEMPO) and fundamental mariner and seamanship proficiency;

e. Material Readiness of electronic systems to include navigation equipment (e.g. AIS, radars, ECDIS, VMS, WSNs), propulsion machinery to include steering systems, combat system modernization, and material availability;

f. Practical Utility of current navigation equipment and combat systems including sensors, tracking systems, displays, and internal communications networks to evaluate their effectiveness at integrating tactical data and providing situational awareness to our people.

Fatigue and Training Gaps Spell Disaster at Sea, Sailors Warn - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/world/asia/fatigue-and-training-gaps-spell-disaster-at-sea-sailors-warn.html

The bridge of each Navy destroyer is controlled by a round-the-clock shift of young officers, who must pass written and oral exams to qualify for the positions. Still, they typically are under 25 and may have little shipboard experience. Junior officers also move on to other assignments after limited tours.

“Are we shortchanging their basic training, especially as we rotate our junior officers every 18 to 24 months?” asked Admiral Crowder.

Training for junior ship officers has changed significantly in recent years. In 2003, the Navy dropped what had been an intensive six-month training course on navigation, basic seamanship, engineering and maintenance before new officers were assigned to their first ship.

Instead, the new officers were sent directly to a ship where they were supposed to learn on the job. Some said they got practical training on deployments, and noted that the Seventh Fleet had a reputation as being the most experienced in the Navy. But, many commanders said, crews were too busy to provide that kind of instruction.

By last year, the Navy had largely reversed course, sandwiching a junior officer’s first sea tour between 14 weeks of classroom work.
[…]
Most ships use a traditional “five and dime” watch rotation, in which sailors serve five hours of watch, then have 10 hours off, he said. But during those 10 hours, sailors often have daytime duties.

The rotation can lead to a watch officer pulling a 20-hour day every three days, Mr. Cordle said, adding that even designated sleep time can be interrupted by drills or refueling operations that can keep sailors up for days at a time. A recent Government Accountability Office report said sailors were on duty up to 108 hours each week.

“I averaged 3 hours of sleep a night,” someone described as a Japan-based Navy officer wrote on Reddit last week. “I have personally gone without sleep for so long that I have seen and heard things that weren’t there. I’ve witnessed accidents that could have been avoided because the person was so tired they had no right to be operating heavy machinery.”

Navy tests of sailors on the five-and-dime schedule found lack of sleep led to blunted decision-making and reflexes that were roughly the same as those of sailors who had downed several beers.

The Naval Postgraduate School has developed a shorter watch schedule to match circadian rhythms, which uses three hours of watch duty and nine hours off. Recognizing the benefits, submarines were ordered to move to a similar schedule in 2015.

Mr. Cordle said adopting the schedule could result in greater safety. But the Navy has left scheduling up to individual captains, and three quarters of ships still use the five and dime.

Ship Collisions : Address the Underlying Causes, Including Culture | U.S. Naval Institute
▻https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-08/ship-collisions-address-underlying-causes-including-culture

Un think tank naval, grosse institution privée (estd 1873…), entre dans la danse (après plusieurs autres dont gCaptain). Dans le collimateur :
• l’organisation des tours de quart
• la non-spécialisation des officiers entre pont et machine
• la (non-)formation au quart
(j’ai lu sur un blog que, sur les navires modernes de la Navy (classe Ticonderoga !), il n’y aurait plus de table à carte en passerelle (support traditionnel du point à la main) mais uniquement de l’électronique…, à confirmer)

In the wake of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collisions, the Navy is conducting investigations, relieving commanding officers, conducting safety stand downs (operational pauses), and retraining. This is a similar response to past mishaps, but this time the Navy must include true root cause analysis . Analysis after mishaps invariably uncovers human error and training deficiencies as causal factors. Some people get fired and others retrained. The Navy has begun to dig deeper with the CNO’s mandate for a fleet-wide investigation last week. I predict some of the findings of root causes will include the Navy’s approach to training and career development, surface warfare officer (SWO) culture, and high operational tempo (OpTempo) driving mission over people. 

When a junior officer (JO) reports to a warship, he or she immediately has three jobs: standing watch under instruction, running a division, and earning qualifications (first as an officer of the deck and then as a SWO). Once qualified to be a watchstander, a JO is on the watch bill and expected to train the next batch of JOs. Depending on the number of qualified watchstanders on board, the watch rotation varies: “port and starboard” (6 hours on watch and 6 hours off); “five and dime” (5 hours on and 10 hours off watch, rotating); three or four section “chow to chow” rotating (based around mealtimes); “3 on/9 off” or “4 on/8 off” with two watches per day that do not change for a given underway. The “off” time is when a JO can accomplish day work, run the division, and work on qualifications—along with a little sleep and maybe squeeze in a run on the treadmill.
[…]
The U.S. Navy appears to be the only maritime organization in the world that does not have dedicated watchstanders and separate dedicated professional tracks for deck and engineering.
[…]
Another root cause likely will be the alertness level of those watchstanders. Watch rotations vary greatly in the fleet, partly because of the variability in the number of qualified watchstanders and partly because of SWO culture. Many COs will direct the watches be run the way he or she experienced as a JO. The vast majority of Navy ships still use rotating watches, which is completely against human circadian rhythms. With rotating watches, everyone sleeps when they are off watch because they are in a constant state of exhaustion. Myriad sleep deprivation studies have proven that lack of sleep is cumulative. You can’t “catch up” on sleep, and decision-making is impaired just like being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Yet the Navy has not addressed watch rotations to maximize crew rest. Instead, it perpetuates a culture where lack of sleep is a rite of passage, and the main risk assessment tool does not account for crew rest.

Singapore-led safety investigation underway into USS John S McCain collision - Channel NewsAsia
▻http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-led-safety-investigation-underway-into-uss-john-s-9174198

The Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) launched a marine safety investigation following the collision of the USS John S McCain and Liberian-flagged oil tanker Alnic MC on Aug 21. 

A TSIB spokesperson said on Thursday (Aug 31) that the investigation was launched immediately after the collision, and the probe was being conducted in accordance with the International Maritime Organization’s Casualty Investigation Code in Singapore’s capacity as a coastal state.

“The US Coast Guard, on behalf of the US National Transportation Safety Board, and the Liberian Maritime Administration are participating in Singapore’s safety investigation as Substantially Interested States,” the spokesperson said. 

To date, investigators have interviewed the crew members of the Alnic, while TSIB has been coordinating with the US Coast Guard to gather relevant information on the US guided-missile destroyer, including statements of account from its crew. 

TISB has also obtained shipboard data from the Alnic and other ships in the vicinity at the time of the collision to support the Singapore-led safety investigation, the spokesperson said.

Si on lit entre les lignes, il semblerait que le TSIB rende public l’ouverture de leur enquête (avec 10 jours de retard) pour faire pression sur la Navy qui, à son habitude, ne semble pas particulièrement coopérative…

Clairement, il n’est pas prévu qu’ils aient accès directement aux témoignages des marins du McCain…

U.S. Navy to Haul Damaged Destroyer John S. McCain to Japan for Damage Assessment – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-to-haul-damaged-destroyer-john-s-mccain-to-japan-for-damage-asses

The U.S. Navy is planning to haul the damaged guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to its ship repair facility in Yokosuka, Japan where damage assessments will continue to take place.

The Navy said Tuesday it intends to issue a task order on an existing contract, for the salvage patching and transport via heavy lift of USS John S McCain (DDG 56) from Changi Naval Base in Singapore to the U.S. Navy’s Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center in Yokosuka, Japan. The Navy did not specify which existing contract it was referring to.

Une hypothèse circule depuis quelques jours : l’USS John S McCain aurait été en train de doubler l’Alnic NC, suffisamment près (ie beaucoup trop près…) pour que, vers la fin du dépassement, la perturbation hydrodynamique due à la vague d’étrave de l’Alnic vienne perturber le safran du McCain, provoquant une embardée à gauche, voire mettant en panne l’appareil à gouverner.
▻http://forum.gcaptain.com/t/uss-j-mccain-alnic-mc-collision-near-singapore/45819/327

Un peu de ménage…
Pour l’instant, l’état-major du destroyer n’a pas été touché.

Admiral, Captain Removed in Ongoing Investigations into USS John S. McCain, USS Fitzgerald Collisions
▻https://news.usni.org/2017/09/18/admiral-captain-removed-part-investigation-uss-john-s-mccain-uss-fitzgera

The commander of the Navy’s largest operational battle force and his subordinate in charge of the attached destroyer squadron have been removed from their positions as a result of ongoing investigations into a string of incidents this year that resulted in the death of 17 sailors and hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, USNI News has learned.

U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Philip Sawyer removed Rear Adm. Charles Williams, commander of Combined Task Force 70, and Capt. Jeffery Bennett, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 15, from their positions on Monday (Tuesday local time) due to a loss of confidence in their ability to command, two Navy officials told USNI News and later confirmed by a statement from the service.

Les réparations auront lieu « localement », à Yokosuka. Localement, parce qu’il faut encore acheminer l’USS John S McCain de Singapour à Yokosuka (transfert prévu dans le courant de ce mois). Contrairement à l’USS Fitzgerald qui lui était à Yokosuka et va être acheminé à Pascagoula dans le Mississippi (probablement en décembre).

USS John S. McCain to Be Repaired in Japan – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/uss-john-s-mccain-to-be-repaired-in-japan

http://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/3692026-1.jpg

The U.S. Navy will repair the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) at the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center in Yokosuka, Japan.

Repairs will begin upon arrival from Singapore aboard a heavy lift vessel in October, the Navy said.

Accessoirement, on profitera de l’immobilisation pour faire un peu de remise à niveau :

In addition to supporting repairs, the McCain’s crew will focus on training, readiness, and certifications to prepare the ship for its return to the Seventh Fleet, according to the Navy.
[…]
On Thursday, the USS John S. McCain departed Changi Naval Base to meet the heavy lift transport vessel MV Treasure, which will transport it to Fleet Activities Yokosuka for repairs.

U.S. Navy says deadly McCain collision was #preventable, relieves ship commander
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-asia/u-s-navy-says-deadly-mccain-collision-was-preventable-relieves-ship-command

“The commanding officer exercised poor judgment, and the executive officer exercised poor leadership of the ship’s training program,” the USS Seventh Fleet said in a statement released in Japan on Wednesday.
[…]
The McCain’s captain, Commander A. Sanchez, and his executive officer, Commander J. Sanchez, were reassigned to other duties in Japan, where the Seventh Fleet is headquartered, the Navy said.

On attend le rapport préliminaire d’enquête…

Time lapse de la mise en place de l’USS John S McCain sur le MV Treasure qui va l’acheminer jusqu’à Yokosuka pour les réparations.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uYHKlUiNZY

Conclusion de l’enquête singapourienne ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/675189

Étude détaillée de ProPublica sur le rôle de la technologie dans la catastrophe ►https://seenthis.net/messages/817125

argh, tu m’as grillé de quelques minutes…

Note sur la photo, le navire arbore les marques de capacité de manœuvre restreinte.

Pour les flammes, il faut que je consulte, mais ça doit être du code international.

Je t’avoue avoir été surpris de ne pas le voir déjà publié en tout début de matinée... et encore plus, quand je l’ai finalement partagé ;-)